RB F1 team director Laurent Mekies voices concerns that Red Bull’s public discussions about reviewing driver performances may exert excessive pressure during race weekends.
RB F1 team director Laurent Mekies believes that Red Bull being open about occasionally reviewing its drivers’ performances could lead to excessive pressure during a race weekend.
Daniel Ricciardo’s future underwent close scrutiny over the Singapore Grand Prix weekend, with the Australian moving from awaiting a decision on 2025 to believing he had likely raced his last Formula 1 race on Sunday night.
One reason for this focus is that Red Bull confirmed it would review the performance of its drivers in both teams post-Singapore – something it also did earlier in the year – but Mekies sees a potential downside to this approach.
“There’s nothing wrong with reviewing driver performance every X races, and I think we may have been too public about it. We did it in the first part of the season, quite openly just before the summer break, I guess at one point we said we would also look after Singapore to discuss it!”
“So it’s part of the game. Indeed, sometimes you can see that the pressure is a bit too much, especially for Daniel in this case.”
“The first thought goes to Daniel because he has had a lot this season. Some races have been very challenging, this one is certainly one of the most difficult. Of course, these guys are high-level athletes and they know how to handle the situation, but sometimes it’s a bit unnecessary to put such pressure on them.”
Mekies says that the attention that can be placed on a driver can impact results when margins are so tight in the middle of the pack.
“If you look at the overall situation, of course, even though we’d like to think it’s not a distraction, it still takes a bit of energy. And when everything is so tight, when every tenth counts, you can’t forget the particularly challenging context he had to manage this weekend.”
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RB F1’s Mekies Criticizes Open Performance Reviews RB F1’s Mekies Criticizes Open Performance Reviews
